JAJA Architects aims to make car parks a little more interesting

Multi-story car parks are ubiquitous, necessary, and almost always boring. Danish firm JAJA Architects hopes to do something about the latter with its Park 'N' Play project. Located in the Nordhavn area of Copenhagen, it's a multi-story car park that features plenty of parking space, but also some greenery and a kid's playground up on the roof.

JAJA Architects was given the nod to go ahead with Park 'N' Play after the firm won a competition hosted by developers By & Havn. The project is part of a wider scheme to redevelop the local harbor area and features a facade of red-brick concrete and a frieze that depicts major local historic events, in addition to scattered greenery.

While most inner-city multi-story car park staircases tend to have that smell and a distinctly sinister "about-to-get-mugged" atmosphere, JAJA Architects cites Paris' iconic Centre Pompidou as inspiration, and envisions its staircase as an attractive feature that will also offer views of the surrounding area.

The stair's handrails are dubbed the "red thread" and include a continuous bar that leads up to the roof, before twisting into some rather cool-looking playground equipment. There are also benches and viewing points for the grownups.

Adam scours the globe from his home in North Wales in order to bring the best of innovative architecture and sustainable design to the pages of Gizmag. Most of his spare time is spent dabbling in music, tinkering with old Macintosh computers and trying to keep his even older VW bus on the road.

Good idea, but it doesn't really address problems with the homeless or with criminals. Maybe stairwells with plexiglass on the exterior walls so there's no privacy? PV panels to provide better lighting at lower cost? And more surveillance cameras.